A HAUL of booze spirited away from an isolated Glen Lyon home may have been the work of a Highland Perthshire-based raider.

Police are not dismissing the possibility that the same crook is responsible for two other jobs at equally remote locations in the same area over recent weeks.

Another theory is the culprits were rogues on a road trip and deemed the chances of detection as negligible.

In the most recent raid, an intruder forced entry into a house on the banks of the River Lyon, a picturesque setting where the 62-year-old male occupant only has one neighbour.

The victim did not discover the break-in until last Monday, estimating the window period for the crime stretched from 9am that morning back to 11am on Saturday.

So far it appears only a bottle of whisky and several bottles of wine were stolen but investigators are still trying to establish if anything else is missing.

“We have no leads at the moment and no witnesses, which is hardly surprising given the location,” a Tayside Police spokesman explained.

“But people living in the glens tend to be pretty switched on about vigilance and keeping an eye out for strangers, so we are appealing to anyone in the area who saw anybody or anything suspicious to contact us.

“We’re not ruling out that all incidents could be linked and we’re unsure if the culprit was locally based or from further afield.”

In the other Highland sting, an intruder, possibly with one or more accomplices, entered an extremely isolated farm in Glen Lyon and stole three chainsaws at some point between January 15 and 21.

Along with an orange Husqvarna chainsaw and two grey and orange Stihl chainsaws – valued at around £400 each – a Clarke battery charger and an SDMO petrol generator were also nabbed.

Although the items had been stored in a workshop, they were not locked away.

The third raid took place at Meggernie Outdoor Centre in Glen Lyon between January 12 and 24, with intruders lifting a petrol generator, a Clarke battery charger and 25 metres of cable from a shed.

Although the window period for both incidents is long, police concede it is possible they could been carried out on the same day.

In the past six months officers have seen a spike in the theft of gardening power tools, strimmers and chainsaws, mainly from domestic sheds or garages in urban or rural locations.